My blog at Popular Woodworking- Medieval Method Can Improve a Modern DesignI recently finished building an Enzo Mari table from the 1970s as part of an article for Popular Woodworking Magazine, and I have only one worry about the project. It looks great. It feels stout. But I’m worried that the joinery might not last forever. The joinery? Lots of properly installed wood screws, with diagonal bracing to reduce or eliminate racking. […]
- Don’t Sand – Burn off your Machine Marks InsteadShou sugi ban – the Japanese finishing process that chars the outside of wood – is an ideal surface finish for some furniture pieces. One of the unsung advantages of burning the wood is that you can reduce (or even eliminate) sanding or planing your boards before finishing them. There are limits to this, of course. If your jointer, thickness planer or saw le […]
- An Enzo Mari Table – and a Puzzle“Mari is right, everyone should have a project: after all it is the best way to avoid being designed yourself.” — G.C. Argan, L’Espresso, 1974 In 1974, Italian designer Enzo Mari published a series of furniture designs that were free to the public. People were encouraged to use his drawings to produce tables, chairs, beds and bookshelves. What’s more, Mari d […]
- John Brown for the 16th TimeEvery time I read John Brown’s book “Welsh Stick Chairs,” I latch onto something different. When I read the book for the first time in the mid-1990s, I became obsessed with the Welsh stick chair’s form (and I remain so to this day). After a few more readings, I became obsessed with the history of Windsor chairs and wondered if JB was right that the origin of […]
- Medieval Method Can Improve a Modern Design
Search Results for: cornett
Hairyman Cornett
Driving through Eastern Kentucky makes me homesick for the mountains of Arkansas. Something about the contrast – intense natural beauty with equally intense poverty – reminds me of growing up in the Ozarks. And every conversation with the locals is … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
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Chester Cornett & His Roman Workbench
I’ve seen a blurry photograph of a detail of Chester Cornett’s chairmaking workbench and read Michael Owen Jones’s description of the bench in “The Craftsman of the Cumberlands.” At the time I thought: That sounds like a Roman-style workbench. And … Continue reading
Posted in Ingenious Mechanicks, Uncategorized
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Another Chester Cornett Rocker (or When Routers Attack!)
Today Brendan Gaffney and I got a rare up-close look at one of Chester Cornett’s rockers during a preview for an antiques auction in Cincinnati. The walnut rocking chair was one of Cornett’s later pieces. And after a close examination, … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized, Yellow Pine Journalism
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Chester Cornett at the Kentucky Folk Art Center
For many years, I have been an undying fan of the work of Chester Cornett (1913-1981), a traditional Eastern Kentucky chairmaker who crossed over to become an artist who lived out his last years in Cincinnati, just a few miles … Continue reading
Posted in Personal Favorites, Uncategorized
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A Flatworker’s ‘Chire’
Few can claim that they’ve made a novel or uncompromising break from the design of their time. Whether we are interpreting, imitating, recasting or reacting to the designs of others (consciously or unconsciously), few designers add truly original elements to … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
14 Comments
Naked Necessity
Earlier this week, contributing editor Suzanne Ellison suggested a short Q&A on early seating furniture, which she has been helping me research for “The Furniture of Necessity.” I consented, as long as the interview was conducted nude. This is my … Continue reading
Posted in The Anarchist's Design Book
26 Comments
Nothing to Divorce
“After he moved to Indiana, and from there to Ohio, Chester (Cornett) again held his raw materials in a gentle embrace as he shaped them, once more using hand tools which were extensions of himself and with which he caressed … Continue reading
Posted in Gallery of Work
9 Comments
